Now that list may include the Nurse and Medical Assistant
that your Primary Care Provider works with, a physical therapist, a pharmacist,
a specialist (or two or three), and maybe a behaviorist, etc, etc.

How do all those individuals stay up to date on the care you
are receiving, what you are experiencing at home that may affect your health,
and most importantly how do they communicate with each other?

Most likely, the current answers to all those questions are
“phone”, “fax”, and “not very well”.

This is why there is a major push in healthcare across the
country to connect both patients and healthcare providers electronically,
through use of Electronic Health Record, Personal Health Records, Remote
Monitoring Devices and most importantly, Health Information Exchange.

The folks at HealthIT.gov have created a short animated video that is a
fantastic overview of how all these technologies work together to improve care
coordination, so that you get the care that you need, when you need it, and everyone
involved is on the same page.